An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.

August 25, 2009

The Crowded Dead Stage 1967-1975

I've put together a list of all the guest appearances in the Dead's early shows. I don't know of a site that provides a listing like this, and it's likely that I've forgotten or left out some guests, so if anyone notices something missing, please speak up!

This list is mostly limited to electric Dead shows where someone outside the band added a musical contribution.
It doesn't include shows for which we have no tapes - for instance, various unrecorded Airplane/Dead jams that happened over the years.
It doesn't include the New Riders' sets - though I should at least mention the 3/18/73 New Riders show where Garcia, Weir, and Godchaux all joined in. It also doesn't include the 1970 acoustic sets in which John Dawson & David Nelson regularly sat in for some songs, though other acoustic guests are noted.
It doesn't include announcers - some of whom, in the early days, are quite entertaining in their own right.
It doesn't include studio sessions (for instance, the Jon Hendricks session in late '66). For a good discography and listings of various studio collaborations (including Garcia's non-Dead projects), check www.deaddisc.com.
It doesn't include the collaborations with David Crosby in late '70 (for instance, the PERRO sessions or the 12/15/70 Matrix show), which could be a whole separate discussion.
It doesn't include the many tapes of Garcia jamming with other musicians - for instance, Country Joe (the Fillmore West '69 "Donovan's Reef jam"), Jefferson Airplane (Family Dog 9/6/69), the Allman Brothers (Cow Palace 12/31/73), Doug Sahm (Austin 11/23/72), or various early jams with Airplane members and others.
But I did include a couple illuminating non-Dead shows that happen to be on the Archive, where Dead members have a strong presence, as well as the notorious Hartbeats shows since those have so much Dead material.

I've decided to skip the early '66 Acid Tests, since they're so full of audience mikes and Prankster chatter - the Dead themselves were the guests. So we'll start at the dawn of 1967:

12/1/66 Matrix - An unknown blues singer & harmonica player joins the Dead for Yonder's Wall and My Own Fault.http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-12-01.sbd.sirmick.26968.sbeok.shnf
1/14/67 Great Human Be-In - During a speedy instrumental Schoolgirl, Charles Lloyd plays flute and does a jazzy, aggressive stream-of-consciousness rap.http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-01-14.sbd.vernon.9108.sbeok.shnf
6/18/67 Monterey Festival - This is the earliest version of Alligator we have - at the beginning of Alligator, someone's playing harmonica where the verses should be. It isn't Pigpen, since it's horrible and off-key (meanwhile he's probably singing into a dead mike) and later in Caution he plays harmonica in his usual style - but I had the impression it might be someone familiar with the song. (They also bleat a little bit in Cold Rain & Snow.) http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-06-18.sbd.mandrake.19586.sbeok.shnf
7/23/67 Straight Theater - Garcia introduces Neal Cassady, who raps for a while while the Dead back him. For the first part they play an instrumental Lovelight (their first known version), then in the second part they get into a minimal 'space' - also the earliest space. https://archive.org/details/gd1967-07-23.aud.sorochty.125462.flac16
9/20/68 Berkeley - In this snippet of a show, the Dead abort a short Eleven to go into drums - they're joined by Shankar Ghosh and Vince Delgado (two percussionists from the Ali Akbar College of Music) for a 25-minute drum break, which ends the show with cries of "Ya, ya, yaketa!" Perhaps equipment or lysergic troubles prevented an Alligator jam - in any case, this must be the longest drum solo until 1978.http://www.archive.org/details/gd1968-09-20.sbd.miller.32900.sbeok.flac16

In October '68, after the temporary firing of Weir and Pigpen, a series of Mickey and the Hartbeats shows started at the Matrix - consisting of Garcia, Hart, sometimes Lesh, and any other musicians that might show up, jamming on a few Dead themes and some freeform explorations. Sometimes it's said that they were auditioning for new Dead members, but this is highly unlikely, since the other players were already in established bands. Garcia may have just wanted to open up a new side-project (we'd certainly see more of those in later years). It's less-known that Lesh isn't even playing during many of these shows - with the exception of 10/30/68, these are mostly Garcia/Casady duets. When Elvin Bishop shows up, the Hartbeats take a definite turn towards standard blues jams.
Not all the Hartbeats shows seem to survive - there are some undated fragments circulating - and occasional Hartbeats shows took place into '69, of which we only have the Aug 28 show with Howard Wales.
10/8/68 - Elvin Bishop & Jack Casady in the later sets.http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-10-08.sbd.belaff.17691.sbeok.shnf
10/10/68 - 'Marvin' (blues singer & harmonica player). I don't think Jack Casady was at the Matrix this night (he was playing with Hendrix at Winterland).http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-10-10.sbd.miller-ladner.4513.sbeok.shnf
10/30/68 - Elvin Bishop; then Jack Casady in the second Dark Star.http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-10-30.sbd.sacks.1205.sbeok.shnf
12/16/68 - Garcia & Hart with Jack Casady, Spencer Dryden, David Getz.http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-12-16.sbd.hartbeats.4529.sbeok.shnf
12/24/68 - Garcia & Hart with Harvey Mandel, Elvin Bishop, Stephen Miller & John Chambers (not on the Archive).

Early '69 was a conspicuously guest-free time as the Dead played their limited setlist with Tom Constanten at show after show. As I've mentioned before, in April/May '69 a little setlist upheaval started as the Dead started bringing back bunches of old covers, adding more variety (and sloppiness) to their shows. All of a sudden in late spring, we see a whole torrent of guests taking the stage in Dead shows, which would continue through 1970.

1970
1/23/70 - Around 12 minutes into Lovelight, someone screeches and hoots lamely with Pigpen for a couple minutes - Pigpen encourages him, "Anything you wanna say, go ahead, I'll follow ya." (This has been thought to be Joey Covington, I'm not sure why.)https://archive.org/details/gd70-01-23.sbd.fixed.connor.18153.sbeok.shnf
2/1/70 - Peter Green plays guitar in Lovelight, and another Fleetwood Mac member hollers for a bit.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-01.psbd.cousinit.18121.sbeok.shnf
2/4/70 - Though it wasn't part of the Dead show, several bands were being filmed at the Family Dog this night; and at the end of the evening there was an "all-star jam" including Garcia, Santana, and the Jefferson Airplane guitarists, part of which was broadcast. It's not on the 2/4/70 Download Series CD, but it is on the "Night at the Family Dog" DVD.https://archive.org/details/gd70-02-04.sbd.kaplan.14188.sbeok.shnf
2/11/70 - For the Dark Star>Spanish Jam>Lovelight, an enormous crew including most of Fleetwood Mac and the Allman Brothers joined the Dead onstage - Peter Green, Duane Allman, Mick Fleetwood, Danny Kirwan, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks & Berry Oakley.http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-11.late-set2.aud.smith.99152.sbeok.flac16
3/8/70 - A mystery guest takes the mike after Pigpen's Katie Mae and "sings" a blues while Pigpen and the band accompany him - then he continues shouting while someone else tunelessly bleats a harmonica all through Not Fade Away, while the Dead apparently ignore them. The singer was thought to be Wayne Ceballos, but is now said to be "Paul Michael Cantrell (aka Rathead)," a local high school student - Pigpen seems to have encouraged him onstage, for some reason. Hands-down the worst guest appearance. (The Archive link has a debate on whether this singer is Ceballos or not - which is ironic, since the genuine Ceballos on 6/8/69 is almost equally atrocious.)
"Wake Me, Shake Me" was a song done by the Blues Project. An audience member notes that "by the time the band did "Lovelight" there were maybe 50 members of the audience on stage with the band... The band members were surrounded by crazed audience members." http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-03-08.sbd.9195.sbeok.shnf
3/17/70 - This famed show, where the Dead played with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, doesn't survive on tape. But there are descriptions of the show here:http://www.theblackdog.org/gd-bpo/
(As for lost shows, I should also mention 5/10/70, where the Dead jammed with the Allman Brothers again.)
4/9/70 - An unknown guest sings the improvised "Cowboy Song", an interesting Sugar Magnolia-type hoedown, as the audience stamp their feet.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-04-09.sbd.hanno.6157.sbeok.shnf
4/15/70 - Deadlists says that during the Santana-like jam in the Other One, "A third guitarist sits in, and also someone on keyboards, and someone on congas." There is a mystery organ player, but there is no third guitarist. https://archive.org/details/gd70-04-15.sbd.kaplan.14354.sbeok.shnf
6/7/70 - During the Other One drum solo, a lady gives a speech to the audience; not only that, but someone's singing off-mike during the Cryptical reprise. (Deadlists claims this is Robert Hunter.) Someone also sings "hey baby" over the opening of Cosmic Charlie. The Dead themselves, perhaps unsurprisingly, seem a little unfocused.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-06-07.sbd.hollister.98.sbeok.shnf
6/13/70 - According to Deadlists, "Dino Valenti and Gary Duncan appear on Good Lovin' and Lovelight." There may be a third guitar in Lovelight, but otherwise I can't hear them, so I'm skeptical of this. (Pigpen plays a neat piano in the New Speedway Boogie solo, though.)https://archive.org/details/gd70-06-13.sbd.hanno.9079.sbefail.shnf
7/14/70 - In the acoustic set, David Crosby plays 12-string on Cumberland Blues and New Speedway Boogie.https://archive.org/details/gd1970-07-14.sbd.unknown.96628.sbeok.shnf
7/16/70 - At Bear's going-away party, Janis Joplin sings another Lovelight with Pigpen - this one is much raunchier than last year's.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-07-16.sbd.clugston.6485.sbeok.shnf
7/70 - A KSAN broadcast from an unknown date of an in-studio "Bobby Ace" set - Weir on acoustic, Garcia on pedal steel, John Cipollina on slide guitar, Pete Sears on piano. Weir sings four acoustic songs. Known as "the Garage Tape;" not on the Archive.
8/19/70 - David Crosby plays guitar in Not Fade Away>Lovelight - unfortunately, in the audience tape it's hard to make him out.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-08-19.aud.cotsman.11797.sbeok.shnf
9/17/70 - On Box of Rain, David Nelson plays guitar and Garcia plays piano, as on the album.https://archive.org/details/gd70-09-17.aud.remaster.sirmick.27591.sbeok.shnf
9/20/70 - In the acoustic set, David Grisman plays a second mandolin (along with David Nelson) for several songs. It's also notable that Garcia plays piano on To Lay Me Down, as he had on 9/19 (Pigpen usually played the piano during the acoustic sets).https://archive.org/details/gd70-09-20.aud.remaster.sirmick.27583.sbeok.shnf
11/11/70 - Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, and Papa John Creach join the Dead during Goin' Down the Road and they play a series of fun jams, blues, and rockers to end the show.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-11.aud.cotsman.17081.sbeok.shnf
11/16/70 - This Hell's Angels benefit has a few guests on several tunes - Steve Winwood on organ, Will Scarlet on harmonica, and perhaps Chris Wood doing some singing in Not Fade Away. (This show used to be known as 11/23/70, but 11/16 Fillmore has become the accepted date.)
An audience tape from this date also features Papa John Creach soloing on Good Lovin'. (Jorma and Jack may be playing too, though it's hard to hear.) http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-16.sbd.winters.17361.sbeok.shnfhttps://archive.org/details/gd1970-11-16.135717.aud.petlock.flac16
11/20/70 - The bonus set with Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady features quite a few hot jams and rockers, in better quality than 11/11.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-20.aud.cotsman.9001.sbeok.shnf
11/21/70 - Only part of the set exists, a Cryptical>Other One medley. Ned Lagin played with the Dead (as photos show), but he wasn't plugged into the PA, so he's quite inaudible.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-11-21.sbd.cotsman.17033.sbeok.shnf
I should also mention here the 11/21/70 Boston radio show after this performance - Garcia & Weir play several acoustic songs and are joined by Duane Allman, who plays one acoustic instrumental. (This set is not on deadlists or the Archive.)
12/31/70 - During I Know You Rider, you can hear a woman screaming continually for quite a while; the Dead ignore her. After the song, another woman says into a mic, "Um, excuse me, I forgot my cape in the corner over there...." As Deadlists puts it, "Plainly things were a little out of control backstage; perhaps there was a mic live that shouldn't have been." (This is also the show where the Dead direct a spotlight onto an audience taper - Garcia shouts, "There's bootleggers among us - let's find out who these people are!")http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-12-31.sbd-fm.7283.sbeok.shnf
12/31/70 - After the Dead show, in the wee morning hours Weir came back for an extra set with Hot Tuna (Jorma, Jack, Will Scarlet on harmonica, Joey Covington on drums) - playing a selection of oldies, most of them in the Dead's setlists, but here done Hot Tuna-style. This is a rare example of hearing Weir (rather than Garcia) as a guest.http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-12-31.aftershow.sbd.cole.6171.sbeok.shnf

Guest appearances dropped off significantly in 1971, as the Dead tightened up their shows. In fact, there were no others that year - except for three nights in the Fillmore East run in April:
4/26/71 - Duane Allman plays guitar in Sugar Magnolia, Hurts Me Too, & BIODTL. He's rather low in the mix on circulating tapes (and the song selection could be better). Apparently these songs were almost released on the Ladies & Gentlemen set, but were halted by legal issues. (One song has been released on the Skydog box set.)https://archive.org/details/gd1971-04-26.113839.sbd.smith.boswell.flac16
4/27/71 - The Beach Boys emerge from the mists of time for a little mini-set in the middle of the Dead's set, playing a few of their own tunes with the Dead joining in for some '50s covers.https://archive.org/details/gd1971-04-27.sbd.boswell.smith.114094.flac16
4/28/71 - In an even more surprising emergence, Tom Constanten reappears - not for a whole set, interestingly, but he plays in the Dark Star>St Stephen>Not Fade Away medley. This was released on Ladies & Gentlemen.https://archive.org/details/gd1971-04-28.sbd.boswell.smith.114088.flac24

One summer jam session must be mentioned:
8/21/71 at Mickey Hart's barn - The Dead jam for a couple hours with John Cipollina, David Crosby, Ned Lagin, and Merl Saunders - and amazingly, it's taped. (An earlier "Day in the Country" jam at the Barn with a similar lineup was also recorded, but hasn't circulated.)http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-08-21.hartjam.aud.17179.sbeok.shnf

12/31/71 also has a raucous midnight start - during the opening Dancin' in the Streets jam, the radio announcer mentions that two men "took off their diapers and are running around the stage nude!" Someone (perhaps one of these men) shouts "Happy new year!" and some random shrieks into a mic during the jam. Afterwards, Weir announces that the stage is a mess....http://www.archive.org/details/gd71-12-31.fm.lanum.135.sbeok.shnf

A new twist came in September '73. For eight shows in the 9/11 to 9/26 Northeast tour, Joe Ellis & Martin Fierro joined the Dead on horns for Let Me Sing Your Blues Away, the Weather Report Suite, Eyes of the World, Truckin' and Sugar Magnolia. These shows have aroused mixed feelings - while the horns added a free-jazz or New Orleans-ish tinge to the sets, some people feel they're more intrusive than enjoyable. It's also notable that the horns weren't added to other jam songs - and this tour in general was rather light on the deep jams. I suspect the horn players weren't given much practice time to work out arrangements - as a result, we get quite a few second-set jams of Truckin'>Eyes>Weather Report.
This is one show illustrating all the songs they played in: Let Me Sing Your Blues Away, Truckin', Eyes of the World, Weather Report Suite>Let It Grow, Stella Blue, and Sugar Magnolia.https://archive.org/details/gd1973-09-17.sbd.sirmick.107542.flac16

Though not a Dead show, 11/28/73 is worth mentioning since Ned Lagin & Phil Lesh (unbilled) joined Garcia & Hart for a Seastones-inspired "Experiments in Quadrophonic Sound" concert - more prolonged and abstract than the usual Dead space-jam, but more listenable than Lesh & Lagin's 1974 adventures, since Garcia's doing some interesting things.http://www.archive.org/details/gd73-11-28.sbd-seastones.finney.968.sbefail.shnf
(This file has 11/28/73 divided into several AUD & SBD sections, which may not all be from that date, along with some non-Dead Constanten Tarot outtakes. A full AUD tape is also available, but not on the Archive.)

Once the Dead started touring again, I don't recall any guests onstage until mid-'78, with the likes of Hamza el-Din, Lee Oskar, John Cippolina, and various Pranksters & motorcycles & banjo ladies....but that is a list for someone else to start.

I should have caught the 6-13-70 guests - I believe there is piano in there too, not sure who's playing that. I mentioned the 1970 acoustic-set guests in the acoustic-sets post - but other than the usual NRPS guys & the couple you listed, the only other one I recall was David Grisman on mandolin at the 9/20/70 show.

Crosby can be a ghostly presence sometimes (as on the 8-19-70 tape). What's also interesting about 8-14-71 is that Ned Lagin says he was playing along with the Dead at those Berkeley shows, but wasn't plugged into the PA....this happened at several shows apparently, and I only mentioned it for 11-21-70 since there's not much use listing a guest you can't hear!

I should also note, I've read that someone (probably Joey Covington) is singing in the 1-23-70 Lovelight, but I haven't checked for myself yet: http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-23.sbd.fixed.connor.18153.sbeok.shnf

I went to listen to the 6-13-70 AUD again - wonderful show, in particular the Lovelight. I'm not sure I hear two guests in there (the Compendium reviewer says he can't hear them), but there may be a third guitar there. Anyway, I think the piano on New Speedway is Pigpen, since he played piano for it at the Aug '70 Fillmore West shows as well.

More to add! Ned Lagin joined the Dead for Dark Star on 2-18-71 (clavichord) and 4-8-71 (electric piano). He's fairly clear in the 2-18 show (also during Wharf Rat & Candyman), but is barely audible on 4-8.http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-02-18.sbd.cantor-crouch-diebert-gmb.85478.sbeok.flac16 http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-04-08.sbd.unknown.14397.shnf He also says he played in the Other Ones on 8-14 and 8-15-71. I'll have to check those again to see if he's audible....

More corrections - The "5/29/69" show is actually 5/11/69: http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-05-11.fm.cotsman.6296.sbefail.shnf

Also, this site has more details on the guests at the Fillmore West June 6 and 8, '69: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/04/fillmore-west-june-6-and-8-1969-guest.html Looks like it was Wayne Ceballos (not Elvin Bishop) guesting on June 6; and there were apparently more guests on June 8 than you might think...

While I'm at it, deadlists also notes for the 4-15-70 Other One: "A third guitarist sits in, and also someone on keyboards, and someone on congas (starting from during the first drums)."

A correction: 11-28-73 is not Ned Lagin. Collectors have long erroneously thought it was a Seastones show - but it's actually Garcia and Hart, doing an experiment in quadraphonic sound. (The full audience tape has just recently surfaced - it's basically 2 1/2 solid hours of space!) I'm not sure even if Phil Lesh was there (he's unannounced), though he should have been...

So strictly speaking, 11/28/73 no longer belongs on a "Grateful Dead guests" list, though 6/6/75 is still valid as far as I know!

'6/19/68' is not 6/19/68...it's actually 2/19/69. Someone sings along with Pigpen in the second part of Lovelight. And there is an extra guitar player (maybe one of the QMS guys) in the second-set jam, but I don't hear Jack Casady in there.

I forgot to note this before, but there's a more complete 8-minute copy of Neal Casady's 7-23-67 rap available as filler here:http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-11-10.sbd.sacks.1612.sbeok.shnf(I must confess, though, that link has not been streamable in quite some time.)

That recording is only an excerpt; it was first released as a flexidisc in Hank Harrison's early-'70s Dead Book. Presumably he had a more complete tape of that evening, but no more of it has been heard since.

Another minor correction - the 11/28/73 link here includes outtakes from Tom Constanten's Tarot album. Though long believed to have Garcia, Lesh & Hart playing on them, I think it's just TC's regular Touchstone/Rubber Duck band of the time, with no Dead involvement.

I was at one of the Tarot concerts in the 70's, Jerry Garcia was listed as a sometimes guest, and Tom Constanten had some involvement but wasn't there, I just passed on the playbill to a friend, but I think I still have a scan and a scan of the stub if you are interested.Huckleberry AT ptd.net

It's been reported that there's a piano player in the post-drums jam on 4/7/71: http://www.archive.org/details/gd1971-04-07.sbd.cantor.gmb.96225.flac16

The most likely suspect is Ned Lagin, who also guested the next night. The piano is barely audible here, though. And unfortunately, the jam cuts after only two minutes! It's quite possible this show was multitracked for the live album, though, so a complete copy of the jam might be in the Vault.

This is an unusually short show - at the end Jerry apologizes that they can't play more due to the curfew, and they may have been delayed and just played one long set that night rather than two. For now, we don't know how long that jam might have been - it could've turned right into NFA, or it could've wandered a while like the jam on 4/29/71.

This is something I forgot to add earlier... Tom Constanten briefly mentioned some early guest appearances: "I remember a San Diego show where Santana sat in with us at San Diego State. [5/11/69] Also, the New Orleans Pop Festival where the Jefferson Airplane sat in with us. [9/1/69] There was also one time at a place on Sunset Boulevard called Thelma's...where Stephen Stills and David Crosby sat in with us. [12/10/69]"

It's interesting that TC remembers Crosby at the Thelma's show, since he's not evidenced on tape. But the really intriguing part is the Airplane sitting in at the New Orleans Pop Festival. Our tape of the show doesn't have them, and a festival seems an unlikely place for this to happen (due to many bands & lack of time), but there may well have been a post-show jam not on our tape. (Garcia and Hart would join the Airplane for a jam at the Family Dog just a few days later.)

Sadly, there is an identical situation from 1966 - on 7/16/66, the Airplane & the Dead played Midnight Hour together. (Notoriously sung by Marty Balin, Pigpen, Joan Baez, and Mimi Farina!) But it is not on our tape of the show.

i attended the 7/16/72 hartford show and was about 30 feet from the stage. aside from what's already known, i clearly recall dickie betts coming out first during sugar magnolia although you can't hear him on the sb. also, jaimoe from the abb was playing as 2nd drummer on the whole closing segment from nfa through j.b. goode. you can hear two drummers pretty clearly especially during nfa. some of this may be easier to hear on the aud recording since the mix at the end was all over the place on the sb.

I wonder if it is easier to hear on the AUD... Set II of the AUD no longer circulates; at least, the show copy on the Archive only uses it for set I, so I've only heard the SBD of set II. That copy notes: "mix/equipment problems during Sugar Magnolia."

Someone on dead.net recalled about one of the Boston Tea Party shows in October '69: "Between sets there was a mime/music improv that involved a mime (I do not know who he was) with Jerry, Mickey and TC doing improv music behind him. It was different, strange and weirdly engaging." http://dead.net/show/october-2-1969

David Gans has pointed out that it's not Ronnie Hawkins on 6/13/69 - it's Wayne Ceballos (of Aum), and the flute player was likely Gary Larkey (of Sanpaku). Those two bands opened that show.

Larkey is also the likeliest flute player on 8/21/69, not Charles Lloyd - Sanpaku also opened that show. See this post: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/12/guest-flute-players-with-grateful-dead.html (The guests on 8/3/69 haven't been conclusively identified yet, though.)

An Archive reviewer says the guest on 3/8/70 was "Paul Michael Cantrell (aka Rathead) jumping up on stage and playing harmonica during Pigpen's acoustic set. Pigpen didn't know what to make of it but they jammed together and he seemed to enjoy it cause he/they let him stay and play. The rest of the band came back and in a short time the majority of the audience ended up on the very small stage for the rest of the night!"

Sometime soon I have to update this post, there are way too many outdated mistakes...

A new guest has been discovered! In the Lovelight on 4/4/69, there is a different organ player, definitely not Pigpen or TC. He clearly isn't too familiar with the Dead's Lovelight, but he gives it a shot... Sanpaku opened that night, and they had an organ player, so he would be my bet for this mystery guest.

I just listened to the Beach Boys portion of 4/27/71 and was wondering what members of the Beach Boys were playing with the Dead because I don't hear much lead Garcia and the drumming sounds very mechanical and sort of loud.

In Searchin and Cell Block 9, the Dead stay on the stage along with the Beach Boys - there are two drummers. (I think Lesh stays on bass but am not sure. Pigpen also sings in Searchin.) In Good Vibrations and I Get Around, the Beach Boys are by themselves. At least Garcia and Weir return for Help Me Rhonda; then for Okie and JBG, Kreutzmann is back as well, and there's more twin-drumming. (Not sure if Lesh plays in these, but I suspect he does.) As far as I know it's the full five-man Beach Boys lineup. Their regular bass player, Bruce Johnston, may have stayed on keyboard when Lesh was on bass.Searchin and Cell Block 9 are probably the highlights, so far as this kind of thing goes; Help Me Rhonda would have been improved by a bit of tuning & rehearsal in advance...

I have a question. There was a tape from the 80's that I loved, and I can't find it... It's a normal show...not suggesting that I have some "secret show" or anything...I just can't find the tape and I can't figure out which show it is in deadbase, etc. .ANYWAY, during the Drums/Space there is a "guest." I think the person opened or something, but was invited on stage during drums and space... whoever they (or he) is, they are Indian (aka from India or something) and does this "chanting" sort of thing... Ahhh hummm durrrr ummmm haaaaa neeshhhh ahhhh hummmm dummmm kind of sound. Does anyone know what show that might be... again, normal show during the 80s. Anyone who knows their "dead" ought to know what I am taking about. THANKS!!!! Oh yeah... feel free to email me at jblakeney0@gmail.com THANKS!!!!

My best guess is that's Hamza el Din, an Egyptian musician the Dead met in '78 who guested with them frequently. These are a few shows he appeared in: 11/24/78 drums>Ollin Arrageed>Fire8/5/79 drums>Ollin Arrageed>NFA 12/30/86 Hamza/drums>Iko3/17/88 drums/Hamza>space>GDTRFB12/27/90 drums/Hamza>space>Miracle12/31/90 drums/Hamza>space>Other One

There may be other examples of chanting in '80s Drums>Spaces that I don't remember - the drummers sometimes brought on other guests. Another instance (not the one you're looking for) is 6/2/95, when Drums>Space had a break for the Gyoto Monks to chant for a bit...

The 7/28/73 Watkins Glen encore listed here is incomplete. That set is famous for the Dead, Allmans, and Band jamming on Not Fade Away, Mountain Jam, Around & Around and Johnny B Goode.

However, there was more to the set that never circulated with the Dead's tapes - Garcia played on a few songs with the Band before the big Allmans jams. The full set seems to have emerged only recently on Jim Cooper's audience tape of the show.

The encore set starts with the Band by themselves - Rick Danko sings a couple songs. (He sounds pretty drunk.) Then Garcia comes out to join them. Richard Manuel (on piano) sings Have You Ever Been Mistreated, and Garcia takes the first solo; I think Robertson plays the following solo. Then Rick Danko does Da Di De Day, with a little solo from Garcia, who stays more in the background in this song. (It's hard to tell how many guitarists are onstage by this point, but I think Dickey Betts is in there as well.) After NFA comes the highlight, Garcia & Danko singing Warm & Tender Love, with a nice Garcia solo. It sounds a lot like a lost JGB song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yui6xHeXGgY The rest of the set is familiar from the Dead's tapes.

Since Around & Around, Mountain Jam and JBGoode are available in SBD with the Dead's show, it's likely that the earlier part of the set exists in SBD as well.But for now it's available on a nice stereo AUD recording (along with the rest of the Band's show), well worth checking out.

re 8/3/69 -- I had always suspected it was Michael White on violin, but apparently it is not. I emailed White and got a response that he has no recollection of ever playing with the GD. And it turns out that White's band (the Fourth Way) had a gig that night in Berkeley, so it seems unlikely he would just pop by the Family Dog. Oh well. The mystery continues.

The popular candidate on 8/3/69 has been David LaFlamme, but it does not sound like him.

My own speculation is someone who actually is known to have played fiddle with the Dead in '69: John Tenney, who played on the studio song 'I'm A Lovin' Man.' He was then in an SF country band with Clancy Carlile called Mother's Country Jam: http://www.msanderz.com/nojs/mcj.html John Tenney also had a blog for a few years with his recent music, for those curious - surrealist soundscapes, ambient weirdness & avant-garde sampled montages influenced by Cage & Stockhausen, showing his interests were not so far from the Dead's: https://lumpyharvest.wordpress.com/

A couple other possibilities that have been suggested are Sid Page (of Dan Hicks' band) or Spencer Perskin (of Shiva's Headband), but I have doubts that this fiddler is that good. My own new favorite candidate is Rodney Albin (who later played fiddle in Robert Hunter's bands), but we don't know if he would have wanted to play with the Dead in '69, let alone in a giant improv suite - he may still have been mostly into folk music. Or it could be some unknown person we've never heard of...

I believe Richard Greene was in San Francisco in '69, so he's another possible candidate for the 8/3/69 fiddle guest. But the fiddling here is more limited than I would expect of Greene in tunes like Hard to Handle and High Heeled Sneakers - though he plays in a similar 'country' style, so stylistically at least they're not unalike. We need a good fiddle listener to check out these tracks, but I don't think the guest here was any virtuoso.I'm not sure Greene was playing with Garcia yet, this seems a bit early. However, they had met back in '63/64, and they'd work together briefly on the Tarot project in 1970, so Greene's presence at a '69 Dead show isn't in itself unlikely.

I have a more exciting discovery to announce, though... Listening again to the first few tracks of 8/3/69 (especially High Heeled Sneakers), it sounds like there might be a third guitarist in spots. The trouble is, the fiddle in the mix kind of blends into the other instruments; and the mix itself is weak & wobbly, with all the instruments cluttered together; so any third guitar is just a distant noise well in the background.

But in Mama Tried, the third guitarist is unmistakable, and up in the mix. Not only that, but he appears the night before on August 2 in the same spot as well! In performances of Mama Tried before & after these shows, after the first chorus Garcia just plays a brief lick before the next verse, and the one guitar solo comes before the last chorus. On August 2 & 3, though, another solo is added after the first chorus, in a very different style from Garcia's - in fact, it definitely sounds like Clarence White's B-bender style, very thrilling to hear, played the same way both nights. (Garcia then plays his usual solo before the last chorus.)The most obvious candidate for this guest guitarist would be David Nelson. Not only was he playing with Garcia at the time, but he also played a (more restrained) B-bender solo in Box of Rain a year later. I think he drops out of the show after Mama Tried.

On 8/2/69, Nelson also plays lead guitar on Slewfoot (same style) while Garcia is on pedal steel. It's very cool, check it out.

I believe Nelson also plays the guitar solo in Mama Tried on 6/28/69. It's not Garcia, it's in the same style (though slowed-down), and with Peter Grant & John Dawson also guesting, Nelson's presence is very likely.

At the show on 2/26/73 at the Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, NE (https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-26.sbd.kaplan.1208.sbeok.shnf) aka Dick's Picks 28 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks_Volume_28) during Dark Star -> Eyes of the World, there is an uncredited second drummer. You have to listen pretty hard but the heavy cymbals and bass drum can be heard while Billy does his familiar rolls of that period. Most people think it's just Billy, but not even Billy can pull off all that sound. I have corresponded with David Lemieux and David Gans and neither has any clue how it might be. I even emailed with the Univ of Nebraska archivist to see if there is a contemporary review from the school newspaper that might mention the mystery drummer. No luck...

I then asked Mickey and Billy through Mickey's publicist who is a friend of mine, as well as Nicholas Meriwether at UC Santa Cruz, but again dead ends.

Can't help there....I thought it was just Billy too! He's in stereo, but I just don't hear two drum sets. Nor can I imagine someone coming out just to play his cymbals - there's similar cymbal-work throughout the show, for instance in Playing in the Band. And a quick glance at the shows before & after, 2/24 & 2/28/73, reveals the drumming there to sound the same (it's more clear on those tapes, actually - check the bass/drum solo in both shows). https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-24.sbd.elliot.11929.sbeok.shnf https://archive.org/details/gd73-02-28.sbd.weiner.15386.sbeok.shnf

Michael Hinton was Mickey Hart's drum student in 1966-67, and was with Mickey at the Count Basie show at the Fillmore where Mickey met Bill Kreutzmann. (As told in Bill's book Deal, p.78.)Hinton told Sandy Troy, “After Mickey joined the Dead in the fall of 1967, I jammed with them at some Fillmore concerts. I also played with Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady as a trio. We did a lot of experimental stuff on those Tuesday night Fillmore sessions. I played with the Airplane for about eight months in 1968 when Spencer Dryden left the band... (Troy: Do you remember any specifics of shows when you jammed with the Dead?) I remember one night we got together at the Fillmore, Bob Weir had a little [rhythm] thing, and Jerry had a little thing in seven, and we all played on that. It was a full house of people and it was an incredible musical experience. Phil is such a great bass player; it's always fun to play with him. There was a lot of rhythmic experimenting going on.” (One More Saturday Night, p.214)

No specific dates here, but Hinton may have added percussion to the occasional Carousel/Fillmore show. It sounds like he's talking about the Carousel's Tuesday night jams in spring '68, which continued as the Fillmore West's Tuesday night auditions/jam sessions. So Hinton may have joined in multi-player jams rather than specific Dead shows. (I don't know how much he actually played with the Airplane, either.) He did play with Mickey Hart sometimes in later years, as well as the Dead at some shows (a couple are mentioned in Troy's book - 4/22/79 & one of the 9/79 MSG shows).

Phillip Leno Wright, who played guitar with Junior Walker & the All-Stars, wrote in his memoir "Free Mind Free Speech": "Our next tour was at the Fillmore West club in San Francisco, California. While we were performing there on one occasion, I stood on stage directly behind the Grateful Dead band, with my guitar still hanging around my neck, when Jerry Garcia stepped back to me and asked me if I wanted to sit in with them. I said yes, so he took his guitar cord and plugged it into my guitar, and I took a solo after he pushed me out to the front of the band. It was the most exciting and humbling experience that I had ever had. It was much like the time when I visited my friend Jimi Hendrix at his club, the Experience, and sat in with his band." (p.44)

The Dead show Wright mentions was during June 5-8, 1969, at the Fillmore West - the run where Wayne Ceballos and Elvin Bishop both replaced Garcia on guitar during a couple shows. Junior Walker & the All-Stars opened for the Dead on those dates, and particularly on June 8 it sounds like some of them joined the Dead: there may be an unknown keyboard guest in Lovelight who takes a solo at one point (though it could be Constanten), and Billy Nicks (the All-Stars drummer) joins on percussion. My first guess for Wright's guest spot was the 6/8/69 Lovelight in particular, but it sounds like just Garcia & Weir on guitar. Other possibilities are the Lovelights on 6/6 (47 minutes long), or 6/7 (with Janis), or 6/5 - but I didn't notice anyone but Garcia taking solos. Still, there could be a hidden guest solo somewhere in these shows. (It's tricky since Ceballos plays guitar on some songs on the 6th, and Bishop on the 8th, and maybe Wright came out while they were on? I haven't checked the full shows again.)

It's possible Wright was making it up as a boast, or misremembering; but I doubt he's lying, since guesting with the Grateful Dead would hardly be a career achievement in his circles! Plus his account fits what we know of those scrambled Fillmore West June '69 shows when a bunch of people were sitting in.

For an example of his style, here's a single he played on a bit later, credited as P. Wright - recorded in '69, I think he plays both guitar tracks, the wah-wah & lead, since no other guitar player's listed - pretty nifty guitar solo near the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_oNIiJ96no "The rhythm section of Wright, Teasley and Scurlock were better known as Jr. Walker's All Star group, and they made this recording shortly before leaving the bandleader's ranks."